Per reporter: Zhao Wenqi Per editor: Liu Xuemei
On October 26, T3 Travel, an online ride-hailing platform, announced the completion of a round of 7.7 billion yuan in financing, which is also the largest single financing obtained by online ride-hailing companies in China since 2018.
Before this, the online car market has experienced nearly four months of "high-energy competition": first of all, the platforms such as Meituan Taxi and AutoNavi Respond quickly, and the subsidies of the passenger side and the driver side quickly seize the empty window period of the market, followed by the large-scale entry of capital -
On August 4, Xiangdao Travel announced the successful issuance of the first asset-backed special plan "Xiangdao No. 1", with a financing scale of 500 million yuan; on September 6, CaoCao Travel held a press conference to announce the completion of a B round of financing of 3.8 billion yuan; on September 11, a person close to the investment institution revealed to the media that Hello Travel is close to completing a new round of financing, and after two rounds of market stability, Halo Travel will also focus more on four rounds of business; coupled with the latest official announcement of T3 Travel's 7.7 billion yuan financing, During the year, the amount of financing obtained by the online ride-hailing industry has exceeded 12 billion yuan.
The other side of the once-influx of capital is the collective silence after the head companies of the travel track have just experienced a "wave of listings": in October last year, Dida Chuxing took the lead in submitting a prospectus in Hong Kong stocks, and now a year later, Dida Travel's two sprints have ended in failure; Hello Travel also announced the withdrawal of its IPO application to the United States in July this year; Didi, which successfully landed on the capital market on June 30 this year, is still under regulatory security review.
In the disclosed prospectus, the profit model and loss of the online ride-hailing business have also been debated endlessly, at the same time, regulatory and compliance issues have always been the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of players on every track, in this case, why is there still capital and players in the online ride-hailing market?
T3 ride-hailing ride-hailing on the streets Image source: ICphoto
Lens Company Research Founder Kang Yuqing said in an interview with the "Daily Economic News" reporter that on the one hand, anti-monopoly has given the Internet market new vitality, but also brought new imagination space to the online car market; on the other hand, the head of the enterprise rhythm is suspended, giving competitors a chance to breathe, for the latter, this is a good time to make up for ammunition, expand the market, and overtake in curves.
However, he also said that in the past four months, the market pattern of online ride-hailing has not undergone essential changes, and each player is only slightly different in the service model, and the difference between this model is also from each company's "grasping the pain point of the opponent and attacking at a single point", once the market pattern is stable, the final probability will converge and learn from each other.
<h2>Waist platform frequent huge financing "state-owned asset background" has become the main investment force</h2>
The head enterprises have their own problems in the capital market, but the waist travel platform has been able to breathe in the empty window period, and has aroused the strong interest of capital.
In the current round of financing of T3, CITIC Consortium led the investment, Yingtong Technology, Tongcheng Travel, Hongwei Capital, Dezhaihou Capital and other follow-up investment, FAW, Dongfeng, Changan, Ali, Tencent and other old shareholders continued to support, this round of financing is also the largest domestic single financing obtained by online ride-hailing companies since 2018.
Previously, Cao Cao Travel's 3.8 billion yuan financing included investors including Suzhou Xiangcheng Financial Holding Group, Suzhou High-speed Rail New City State Holding Group, Suzhou City Investment Company, ABC International Suzhou Company, and Soochow Innovation Capital. There are also rumors that Cao Cao Travel is currently planning a new round of financing with investors, which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022. In response to this rumor, Cao Cao did not respond to the "Daily Economic News" reporter.
In these two rounds of financing, on the one hand, it is backed by FAW, Dongfeng, Changan's T3, and on the other hand, it is backed by Cao Cao Travel, which is backed by Geely Ecology, and the two platforms also have certain similarities: initiated by vehicle manufacturers, mainly based on the direct operation model of car ownership, and the investors of the two platforms also have government and state-owned enterprise backgrounds.
In the past two years, on the one hand, the uncertainty of supervision, on the other hand, the head enterprises occupy a relatively stable market share in the online ride-hailing market, and most of the capital is cautious about the online ride-hailing track, and in the past four months, the bold entry of state-owned capital has obviously seen a new opportunity in the online ride-hailing market.
In fact, in the past few years, there were not a few OEMs that personally operated the online ride-hailing platform, and these players were also known as the "national team" of the online ride-hailing market. However, due to the asset-heavy model, the growth rate of the "national team" has not been as expected, and under the absolute crushing of the Internet playing style and Didi's market share, the "national team" asset-heavy model has started slowly, and the user growth and market expansion speed are not obvious enough.
However, in the strong supervision model, when the head enterprises step on the pause button due to security review, the "national team" is also amplifying its own advantages, and the grouping of main engine factories + state-owned capital and industry ecology is becoming their new way of playing.
In addition to announcing the financing, T3 Mobility also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with CITIC Investment Holdings, where the two sides will unite the strength of partners in various fields to jointly create a new ecosystem of smart mobility. Cao Cao Chuxing previously proposed the "N3" (N cube) strategy, which includes several core parts such as New Car (customized car), New Power (new energy), and New Ecosystem (ecosystem).
In the industry, Cao Cao travel is backed by Geely Ecology, and T3 is backed by three major OEMs. From the basic conditions, these online ride-hailing platforms may start from the hardware competition of customized cars and form their own system advantages. It is also under this strategy that the ride-hailing market is being torn open.
Aurora big data "Q3 mobile Internet industry data" shows that since the industry head encountered challenges in July, waist players once again got the opportunity to compete for users, CaoCao travel and T3 travel growth rate increased significantly, by the end of the third quarter Cao Cao travel MAU has surpassed the flower piglet, reaching 11.015 million, a year-on-year growth rate of up to 62.5%, ranking first in the waist online ride-hailing platform.
According to the data provided by T3 Travel, as of now, T3 Travel has landed in 41 cities, with a cumulative number of registered users of more than 54 million. T3 travel orders exceeded 2 million on September 30, which is the first time that the peak order volume of T3 travel days exceeded 2 million. Compared with its peak daily orders in the second quarter of this year, the increase was more than 100% sequentially.
Image source: Aurora Big Data "Q3 Mobile Internet Industry Data Research Report"
Guan Yuqing said that the biggest competitiveness of players such as Cao Cao Travel and T3 Travel is the support of fixed assets, that is, the fleet can expand rapidly, and the state-owned asset background has a certain effect on the solution of business qualifications. They are already a competitive force that cannot be ignored, and compared with a pure platform company like Didi, the asset-heavy model of the self-built fleet has the advantage of service quality.
In his view, from the perspective of the development of these two years, heavy assets will "theoretically" drag down the expansion speed, but due to the special shareholder background and financial, service, and model innovation, this shortcoming is not irreparable.
<h2>Multiple Forces Dominate Where market competition is headed</h2>
In addition to the "national team", in the past 4 months, the online ride-hailing platform has set off a round of high-profile market competition.
The first to react was the Meituan taxi. On July 9, only on the fifth day after the Removal of the Didi App, the "Meituan Taxi APP" that had been removed from the shelves for more than 400 days was suddenly re-launched in major mainstream app stores. Around July 18, the Meituan Taxi WeChat Mini Program was also launched simultaneously. And this time, they not only used the new Meituan yellow logo, but also focused on announcing that they had opened operations in more than 100 cities.
At the same time, Meituan Taxi openly recruited drivers on its official WeChat public account, and proposed benefits such as "20% additional commission for new drivers in 3 days in the first week, and a maximum of 1,000 yuan ladder jackpot for a single order". In the comments below the driver recruitment, a Meituan employee released a recruitment message saying that the meituan online ride-hailing technology department recruitment includes Java/iOS/Android/Web front-end and other positions, "direct window delivery, feedback on the same day."
In addition to the US group, AutoNavi Taxi, Cao Cao Travel, and Sunshine Travel also launched discounts for drivers and passengers at the first time. In addition to subsidies at both ends of the division, there are new slogans and commission-free rules to attract users. At the end of September, Qixinbao information showed that AutoNavi Map, which had promised to "not go down to do the transportation capacity", also established a travel technology company, and its business scope included online ride-hailing services, which attracted people to speculate.
In some cities, subsidies for ride-hailing platforms seem to be more intense than expected. Some consumers have given feedback to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the use of AutoNavi taxi "special price" taxi or even several orders as long as 0 yuan or 0.7 yuan.
Now that 4 months have passed, the ride-hailing market is quietly changing.
Changes in orders for ride-hailing platforms Data source: Ministry of Transport
The "Daily Economic News" reporter sorted out the data of the main online ride-hailing platform released by the Ministry of Transport every month and found that in the "national team", Cao Cao Travel's order volume in July increased by 32.2% month-on-month, but the order volume in August fell slightly, and continued to recover growth in September. T3 Travel saw a 7.9% month-on-month decline in orders in July, but saw an explosive increase in orders in August and September, up 66.8% and 37.8% month-on-month. Shouqi Ride-hailing increased by 40% month-on-month in July, and fell to a certain extent in August and September.
In contrast, meituan taxi started very strongly, but slightly lack of stamina, the data shows that the order volume of Meituan taxi in July increased by 23.8% month-on-month, but the order volume in August and September are declining.
To a certain extent, it has benefited from the subsidy activities of aggregation platforms such as AutoNavi to both ends of the division, including sunshine travel and other travel platforms have also achieved growth in orders in the past three months. Among them, the timely car order volume cooperated with AutoNavi Map doubled in July and August, and it was also the online ride-hailing platform with the largest growth rate in that month.
However, from the perspective of the order base, the order volume of these platforms and Didi is still not in the same order level. According to Didi's official data, in the past 4 months, Didi has not registered new users, and daily orders have been reduced by more than 5 million times compared with before. However, according to Didi's previous daily peak of 30 million singles, Didi's daily order volume still exceeds 20 million orders, which is much higher than other platforms that have announced daily orders.
Some users also reflected to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the beginning was "whoever has a high subsidy will use whom", when everyone's subsidy is evenly matched, they are still accustomed to using Didi, and Didi's car speed is still faster.
Quan Yuqing said that at present, Didi's current leading edge is more obvious, and its market pattern is more difficult to shake in a short period of time. In addition, once Didi Chuxing survives the "tempering" of the national regulatory authorities and re-launches, the compliance of the platform will be further improved and matured, and the pressure on other platforms will not decrease, but will face more severe tests of supervision.
<h2>The battle between compliance, scenarios, and traffic has become the biggest attraction in the future</h2>
Whether it is huge subsidies or intensive financing, the online ride-hailing market has never lacked the flavor of capital, which can be seen from the number of shareholders behind Didi and more than 20 rounds of financing.
Looking back at the "money burning war" of online car-hailing set off by Didi and Kuaidi 5 years ago, today's online car competition is still driving the market with capital, and subsidies and price wars have once again become a powerful weapon to seize the market. However, what is different from that year is that today's online car market is no longer a "two-tiger fight", and the game and competition of diversified forces have filled the online car industry with more unknowns.
At the same time, the entire online ride-hailing track has already entered the stage of stock competition. According to the statistics of the national online ride-hailing supervision information exchange platform, as of September 30, a total of 248 online ride-hailing platform companies across the country have obtained business licenses for online ride-hailing platforms, an increase of 3 month-on-month, and a total of 3.595 million online ride-hailing driver certificates and 1.418 million vehicle transportation certificates have been issued in various places, an increase of 2% and 4.1% respectively. The national online ride-hailing regulatory information exchange platform received a total of 648.926 million orders in September, up 0.9% month-on-month.
Entering the era of stock competition, online ride-hailing enterprises need to refine operations in order to stream users from the beginning, the focus of competition shifts from traffic competition to the competition of undertaking capabilities, and sufficient driver transportation capacity can meet user travel needs faster, and then improve service quality.
In this regard, Guan Yuqing also said that the initial capital competition of the online car track is financial strength, and whoever has money can burn who has the opportunity; at the current stage, the inflow of funds is more of a test of the platform's operating power.
Industry insiders believe that the simple Internet model and playing methods, simple subsidies to users and other means, in the online ride-hailing industry, will no longer have long-term competitiveness, the next step is to look at the "ecological" competition. In addition, due to sufficient market competition, the degree of refinement of operation will determine the efficiency of the development of e-hailing enterprises. Product line segmentation and operational policy segmentation will increasingly affect the improvement of key data such as users and orders.
In addition to this, the regulatory issue has always been the sword of Damocles hanging over every player's head.
In August this year, when the online ride-hailing platform was in full swing during the empty window period, the competent departments in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places successively interviewed major e-hailing platform companies, and the main content of the interviews was to require the e-hailing platforms not to disrupt the normal market order by improper marketing means such as large price reductions and discounts that were lower than the cost price, and it was strictly forbidden to distribute orders to personnel who had not obtained an e-hailing driver's license and vehicles that had not obtained an e-hailing transport certificate. This is to put on the "tight curse" for new and old players and continue to standardize the industry.
Chen Liteng, an e-commerce analyst at the e-commerce research center for life services, said that refund problems, invoice problems, network fraud and other issues are the main problems of domestic mobile transportation platform complaints, involving platforms including AutoNavi, Cao Cao Travel, Hello Travel, T3 Travel, Yihi Car Rental, etc. Therefore, all online ride-hailing platforms should not "sacrifice their costs and end" when competing for market share, whether in terms of compliance or user service experience.
Guan Yuqing said that there are several important factors that need to be paid attention to in the current and future online ride-hailing market. The first is the traffic entrance, or scene entrance; the second is the possible impact of anti-monopoly, although the current impact on the travel industry is not clear, but there will certainly be more detailed industry regulatory rules in the future to change the industry ecology; in addition, the capital strength of the platform will become more and more important, and market expansion is also the primary goal of every player.
Next, what new forces will emerge in the field of online ride-hailing? And what will happen? But to be sure, the endgame is far from here.
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